Learn how Buzzsumo will help you vet potential guest authors so that you can maintain high-quality standards and authority on your blog!

Ileane Smith:

As the owner of a successful blog, Basic Blog Tips, I get approached several times per week by potential guest bloggers but some of them never make the cut! One of the tools I use in the process of vetting potential guests is called Buzzsumo. In this class you will learn how to use Buzzsumo to examine the work of potential guest authors and find out if they have the level of expertise you would like to represent your domain.

Learn about the most influential bloggers in the blogosphere and what they're doing to gain incredible success. Follow the leaders, and be successful too.

Ileane Smith:

Nice >> Ileane Smith is not your average Social Media Diva. As an active blogger, YouTuber and podcaster, she provides free expert guidance allowing her followers to improve their relationships with their audiences and maximize their earnings the easy way. Her website lets you uncover the secrets of the digital media, craft better content, find your own voice and keep your audiences engaged and entertained. What more could you possibly ask for?

The catchphrase of Ileane Smith’s Twitter page is “Find Your Voice, Capture Your Audience.” And, that is what this blogger and self-proclaimed social media diva specializes in. She offers plenty of tips and tricks, but also she announces her podcasts too.

Ileane Smith:

Here's another awesome mention of me that I found thanks to Buzzsumo alerts! I never get tired of people finding value in what I do.

If you want to do social media right, you need to be strategic. Many of us don't start out that way. We sign up for a site to try it out and fumble around

Ileane Smith:

Buffer is a great tool for setting up a social media posting schedule. Here's a good guide from Ileane Smith of Basic Blog Tips. Buffer works with pre-set time slots, allowing you to automate part of your social media posting. This is a good idea, especially if you have limited time, but social media has to be social and interactive, so avoid the temptation to automate everything.

Suffering from bloggers fatigue? Looking for ways to boost your blog readership? Or just want to spice it up a bit? Here are 20 free blogging tools that will help you be more productive, more creative, and bring in more readers...Become an Infographic WizardInfographics are a great way to depict all kinds of data – from survey results to how your product works. Free tools include easel.ly, Infogr.am and Piktochart. For tips on creating these, check out this blog from Janice Wald: How to Create Infographics that Send Hoards of New Visitors to your Blog.

If you're not promoting your content, it might as well be invisible. There are more than 2 billion netizens, creating zettabytes of data...

you want to get your content in front of as many people as possible. That means setting a schedule for promoting it.

For my own work, I use a tool called CoSchedule (reviewed on Basic Blog Tips). This lets me schedule social media updates on different platforms at different times relative to the date of content publication. While it automates the posting, you still have to create the updates yourself, with help built into the tool. CoSchedule's CEO, Garrett Moon, uses it to promote his blog posts over a two month period.

How to build quality links from authority sites in the Post-Penguin era? Blogger outreach strategy is the best way to build links and grow your traffic...

Yes, creating viral content helps you build great links but you should also reach out other bloggers if you want to get more exposure on your blog posts.

It’s a lot easier for you to get incoming links from other blogs if you mention them in your blog posts. Remember, blogger outreach strategy is all about win/win approach. So you can’t ask anyone to link to your sites without linking to their posts first.

By using the strategies mentioned in this post, shoot an email to a blogger who you linked from your post and tell him you have just linked to one of his posts. That’s it! It’s a perfect way to cultivate the blogger outreach strategy.

A/B testing just takes applying an extra bit of text to your email body copy, using an extra subject line field or setting up a second email and marking it as variant "B". Once you do that, your email marketing service takes care of the rest...

"I decided to poll some of my most long term blog friends and contacts on how their strategies apply and if they had any new strategies for 2015 compared to previous years. These are bloggers that I personally have known since either 2008 or 2009 when I started Dragon Blogger and a great group of bloggers who are all carving out their own place in the Internet for their own passions and ventures. Here are their strategies or blogging tips for 2015 and I share mine at the end of the article.I decided to poll some of my most long term blog friends and contacts on how their strategies apply and if they had any new strategies for 2015 compared to previous years. These are bloggers that I personally have known since either 2008 or 2009 when I started Dragon Blogger and a great group of bloggers who are all carving out their own place in the Internet for their own passions and ventures. Here are their strategies or blogging tips for 2015 and I share mine at the end of the article."

Ileane Smith:

Ileane from Ms. Ileane Speaks says “My plans for 2015 are to continue with creating content on my blog, my podcast and my YouTube channel. What’s new for me in 2015 is the online courses I’m creating on sites like Udemy and Skillfeed. My goal is to challenge myself to produce content that’s more organized and that gets people to take action. I’ve been encouraging people for years to start podcasting and making YouTube videos but many times I find that folks are stuck in the mindset of consuming text content all the time. By making my content available on online learning platforms it will reach more people who are committed to getting on the mic or getting in front of the camera to connect with their audience.”

During this time of gift giving, I really like to be able to give you some sort of a gift. And not just something superfluous or useless. No, I want to give you something that you an use to educate yourself and grow your business even more!

So I have put together my list of favorites in social media from 2014!

The new year is a time for new beginnings, both in life and in business. If you haven’t already, ...

Make a Serious Commitment to Video

(Basic Blog Tips)

YouTube is a great tool for businesses. So why not learn as much about it as possible and use it to your advantage? If you haven’t already, now could be the perfect time to make the most of YouTube, with these tips compiled by Ileane Smith. BizSugar members also talk about the post here.

I also wanted to take advantage of their expertise and asked them each to answer this question for my readers: "What was the biggest mistake you made when you

Ileane Smith:

“Great question. When I started blogging it was purely by accident so I didn’t have any goals in mind. I didn’t know much about social media either so I just fumbled my way around trying to figure out how to use WordPress. It took a few months for me to realize that having a blog is a big responsibility.

My audience grew quickly and I could see that the people who visited my blog or watched my YouTube videos were getting a lot of value out of the content I was producing. I was making an impact on my community and people started turning to me for answers when they needed to solve their problems with blogging and social media management. After about 2 years or more it dawned on me.

I was making the same mistake that many of the top bloggers and content creators make when they start out – I wasn’t building an email list!

Oh well, you know what they say. Live and learn. If anyone want to subscribe to my list now they can head over to Basic Blog Tips and grab a free social media traffic report along with some other exclusive goodies. They will find that I’m still the go-to blogger when they need a helping hand!”

Blog post at WorthBlogger - Tips for writing a blog worth reading : Who doesn't want to become a blogging superhero? I bet you really want to, I mean you wouldn't have clicked on this post link let alone read[....]

Ileane Smith, known in social media circles as Ms. Ileane, is founder of Basic Blog Tips (BBT), a site that seeks to inform consumers about how to reach their blogging goals and have fun along the way. Based in Philadelphia, she is talks regularly with many early adopters, innovators and leaders in the field of SEO, blog tips and monetization. Because she functions in a community of game-changing, new media influencers and has built a business centered on engagement, we met up with her to learn about the role of engagement in building her business.

BlackEnterprise.com: How did BBT get started?

Ileane Smith: I actually started blogging in 2009 by accident. My daughter Nikki started a free WordPress blog. I thought I was signing up to follow her blog, but it turned out that I was actually signing up for my own blog.

Once I realized what I’d done, I got excited about being able to put my thoughts out on the web for everyone to read. Even today I’m amazed by how empowering it is to have a blog. In those days my biggest challenge was finding good tutorials and instructions for how to navigate the dashboard and other technical aspects of blogging. I found myself hunting for tutorials on “YouTube University” and its support forums, like Lisa Irby’s Website Babble. I had not begun to think about how an engaged community supports the bottom line.

Ileane Smith:

I've always been a fan of Black Enterprise Magazine so you can imagine that I'm absolutely thrilled to be featured here in this interview on their site. It is certainly a dream come true!

I’m Ileane and I own Basic Blog Tips, one of the most popular blogs on the web covering blogging, social media and YouTube. My bio reads: Blogger, Podcaster, YouTuber, Social Media Diva.

2. What's your motto?

I’m here to learn, to teach, and to connect! This was the tagline of my very first blog and it still holds true today.

3. Why are you on Tsu?

It’s an interesting place to hang out. I heard about it and then I got the nudge from you, so I decided to move it up on my to do list. I find it very delightful so far. I use it the same way as I do Instagram but I love that it works just as well from desktop as from mobile and there’s no limitation on posting links. Besides, I can’t call myself a “Social Media Diva” if I don’t give a site like this a fair shot, now can I?

#38. BasicBlogTips (RSS) BasicBlogTips posts an average of 2 blog posts per week. With a focus on blogging tips, social media and Youtube tutorials, BasicBlogTips has quickly become a trusted source of inspiration for aspiring bloggers.

#38. BasicBlogTips (RSS) BasicBlogTips posts an average of 2 blog posts per week. With a focus on blogging tips, social media and Youtube tutorials, BasicBlogTips has quickly become a trusted source of inspiration for aspiring bloggers.

Ileane Smith:

I read a lot of these blogs and got introduced to some new ones too! Honored to be mentioned here as well!

I talked with some of the best editors in the SEO and online marketing industry and asked them the following questions:

When a writer emails you about getting involved in your content marketing and contributing content, what is it that you look for in his/her email? Are there specific things you don’t like to see with this type of pitch? Have your standards and thoughts on this subject changed over the last several months?

Ileane Smith:

This is my contribution to the post:

I started accepting guest posts on Basic Blog Tips over 4 years ago and during that time nearly 200 guest authors have contributed content the blog. Most of those bloggers were already on my radar before they approached me about guest posting. I’m active in a number of blogging communities like Blog Engage, Triberr and Social Buzz Club so it’s much easier for members of those communities to connect with me for guest posting outreach. I talk more about my process in this episode of my podcast.

When I get approached by people who use a template email—most of the time I’m not interested. I can always tell when the person hasn’t done their research about me or my blog based on the tone of the email. Of course any email that mentions a “team” of writers gets rejected. Then there are those that are going to provide an article at absolutely no charge or free of charge. I find that type of email very annoying and consider it spam or junk mail.

In the past, the only way I would consider a new guest author is if they left a voice mail for me through my Speakpipe account. That’s a great way to filter out the noise. And I always ask for examples from previous guest posts so I can check their interaction and responses to comments. Something I started doing recently is checking Buzzsumo to search for past articles of potential guests. Just type in “author:author name” to see the results and it does a great job of pulling in their portfolios.Overall, I’m starting to see a lot more guest posting requests come through from more qualified authors and I find that very refreshing.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.